Hi Everyone!

Sorry it has been so long since I updated my blog!

This past weekend, Melissa, Abby and I went on a retreat to Holy Island. Sr. Josepha invited us to go and we gladly accepted her offer! We left at 6pm on Friday evening. We got to the island a few minutes early and had to wait for the tide to go out a little more before we could get on the island. Holy Island is a tidal island and can only be accessed when the tide is low enough. We got all settled in, had tea and dinner. Originally there was going to be a session Friday evening but someone decided it was too late so most people went to the bar instead! Haha! It was actually the first time we went to a pub since being here in England! It was a cute little pub!

Saturday morning started with morning prayer, a full English breakfast (oatmeal, toast, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, beans and sausage), mass and the session that was supposed to take place on Friday evening. We had a little bit of free time before lunch (pizza) so Melissa, Abby and I wandered around the town and the gift shops. In the afternoon we went on a nice walk!! Sr. Josepha and two others who had been there before showed us a good path! We walked by big fields with lots of sheep, walked by the castle and the harbor. The whole group met up by St. Cuthbert's Island with an object we had found to represent a change in ourselves during the past year and talked about them. We had some more free time before dinner. We went back to where we were staying since we were a bit chilly and warmed up with some tea and snuggled up to read and relax. Dinner was fish and chips. Being the ketchup loving that I am, I used a lot of ketchup! Abby and one of the other people I was eating with thought it was a bit much! Like I was eating ketchup with a side of chips. Luckily it was Heinz. I can't remember what we did right after dinner but eventually we headed to the pub again. There was a wedding party outside the pub under a tent and it was more crowded in general. We had a good time talking and playing many camp type games.

On Sunday we again had morning prayer and breakfast. We had enough time between breakfast and mass to go to St. Cuthbert's Island. When the tide is out you can walk across to the island. There was still a bunch of water and it was tricky getting across without getting wet. After mass we had treats and sadly that was the end of the retreat. We were invited to help out at the camps they run during the summer and hope to come back to help with a week long camp in May!

When we got back to our flat we noticed that Br. Ralph had been in and fixed a few things that needed fixing. He came back about an hour after we got there to continue fixing one of our blinds and informed us that the left side of the puzzle we started had 26 pieces while the right side had 28 pieces! I ended up finding 2 edge pieces to add to the left side but I was amazed that he had counted the pieces on each side!

Lindisfarne Castle

A cute building in town

Sheep!!

The sheds are old boats cut in half!!

St. Cuthbert's Island

St. Mary's Church

St. Mary's graveyard

Pretty flowers!!

On Monday I ran two session for the first time. In the afternoon I had a group from a local primary school come in and we made pasta with Bolognese sauce. Eight kids from the class (24 kids total in the class) will be coming in for the next 6 weeks. Things went pretty well and everyone enjoyed the end result except for the one kid who doesn't like pasta. Next week a different group of eight will come in and we will make something else. I also ran a normal session with the help of a young volunteer (a 13+ year old who has attended Kids Kabin and wants to come back to volunteer). This went pretty well as well. One of the kids kept trying to get away with stuff by saying "But Will lets us to ____". Of course I knew Will does not let people do most of what they said and did not let them do it! There are definitely things that can be improved upon but it was nice to start having more responsibility. From now on I will be more or less in charge of cooking on Mondays and Melissa and I will be in charge of art on Wednesdays.

On Tuesday my day started with Common Ground. It was overall a slow day at Common Ground. However, there were several donations that came in. It is "Harvest Festival" now and lots of churches hold food drives and Common Ground received several food donations. In addition to the usual canned food there was a bunch of fresh fruits and vegetables. There must have been about 20 huge heads of cabbage donated....turns out not many people wanted the cabbage either! Some people were excited about it but most of the people coming in for food did not want the cabbage.

At Kids Kabin I helped in the wood work session. Whenever I do wood work I find it more interesting and fun than I expect it to be. I spent the whole time keeping one kid on track with his project of making a chair. He was pretty small and needed some help cutting the wood as well. He would do some but just didn't seem to have enough strength to do all the cutting.

This morning I got up early and ventured to the other side of town in search of a rowing club. There were two clubs right across the river from each other but when I contacted them only one got back to me so that is the one I went to today. The facilities are nice but I was the only person who showed up for the day time rowing. Since I was new and we took time getting a tour of the buildings and the river was a bit choppy I did and erg work out instead of actually rowing. It was good and I got some helpful pointers. I wanted to find a place to row for the physical activity but also for the social aspect which looks like it might be lacking at this club. On Sunday I am going to try out another rowing club that is in Tynemouth. Distance wise is actually a little closer than the one I went to today in Newcastle and I hope I will find the atmosphere I am looking for there!

Tuesday September 14

I had a 10 am meeting with Nina to go over health and safety stuff. I was falling asleep so badly while reading all the info! After the meeting I went to the Walker library since I hadn’t been there yet. It is small but nice. I checked out a book and browsed. I hope to go to the big library in the city centre soon.

At Kids Kabin I bummed around and played piano before the kids came. It was a relaxing way to spend the afternoon. For the sessions I was in art and had a good time cutting out letters and helping kids pick colors, draw lines or cut holes. They were making a nice banner that said Welcome 2 Kids Kabin to hang in the hallway. I helped one girl use a sewing machine for the first time which was fun!

Wednesday September 15

Today Melissa and I went to Common Ground. We waited a few minutes and then basically went over policy stuff with Paul until 1. I am going to struggle with “actively sitting” and not really doing what I was expecting to be able to do at Common Ground. It sounds like once we are there a little while we will be able to do more interesting stuff but for now we are in the welcoming area. I really want this site to work out because it will be different and a challenge but I might find it too challenging. Only time will tell.

I was in woodwork for the sessions at Kids Kabin and was only so so as far as being helpful. One of the boys who had seen me at church excitedly asked if I knew that the Pope was making a trip to the UK. Most of the kids worked pretty independently today so I didn't have a lot to help with until people in the art room next door had sewing machine issues and asked if I could help. Will has no idea how to use it and wants me to show him how on Friday before bike repairs.

I went with for a street session for the first time. It was on Hexam Ave which is about 2 blocks from Kids Kabin. It was windy so we only had the pottery wheel out and brought paper to have an art competition. A 4 year old girl I was helping hold down the paper for while she was drawing said I didn’t talk right. Haha.

Thursday September 16

Today was my first day at Common Ground. When I got there I noticed there weren’t any clean coffee cups so I brought the dirty ones back to the kitchen, washed them and brought out clean cups. Everyone who comes in has tea or coffee so it seemed important to have clean cups for the start of the day. After a few minutes Ali, a volunteer from Iran, came out from talking with Paul and showed me around a little more. He talked my ear off all day! His English is good but I did have trouble understanding him sometimes. I organized a few things in the shop, said Hi to people and got to help with a phone call! That was the most exciting part of the day! I want to say anything I shouldn't but basically the man who came in for help wasn't comfortable with his English phone conversation skills so I made a call on his behalf. It was nice to do something I felt was actually useful! I have not perfected the art of “actively sitting” but if I get to do more things like helping with phone calls I will be happy! I can see that the people who come in really enjoy coming and it is an important place for them. It is different than I expected and will probably test my patience. Oh well. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out but I do want to try it.

At Kids Kabin, I was in "artery" today-art and pottery combo day. Abby and I were originally going to do art but then some of the kids wanted to do pottery and since Abby knows a lot about pottery we moved some art supplies into the pottery room and had a combo day. One of the kids was drawing for most of the time and we had a great conversation. He is a great kid! He told me how he wants to work really hard in school, go to university and law school to be a solicitor…not really sure what that is but oh well. Then he wants to travel the world and write books. He was very focused and asked me questions too. He asked me what kind of music I like to listen too, what I studied in school, what my strengths are, etc! For street session we took out cookery and games. They made popcorn in cookery and I mostly played games. I played “snake” with the jump rope with some kids and throw a ball to this tiny boy for ages! He had a paddle that was velcroy on one side and he was trying to hit it. He was super cute.

Friday September 17

Today started out bright and early with prayer at the Sisters/Brothers on Hexam ave. I had to get up before 8 which was not easy to do at all! Br. Ralph was there along with Jill, Patricia and Christine. Sr. Slyvia is still on holiday. After we ate breakfast with them which was nice. Out of no where Br. Ralph pulls out these one liners:
1. “London is a suburb of Hell. Discuss”
2. “What the bikini covers is more important than what it reveals. (Discuss)”
Sr. Christine was like “Ralph!” and turned red. It was hilarious!

After, we came home and bummed around (Melissa went to KK for her health and safety meeting) until going to KK around 1:30. I showed Will some sewing stuff since he had asked me for a crash course in sewing. He said he knows more now than he did before so that is good!

Bike repairs were busy as usual. Beforehand Will showed us about direct brakes and we took some apart and put them back together. During the session I helped a kid fix that kid of brakes! He had a good idea what he was doing and just needed some guidance and support/affirmation.

We made chicken tacos and guacamole for dinner! It was delicious! At one point I realized the hot water wasn’t working and that our boiler had an error message on it. We didn’t have a manual but I found one online. I also realized we had our boiler set on hot water only, not hot water and heating!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG! That was why it was cold inside! We all just expected the heat to kick in sometime and it hadn't. There is a switch with a bandaid over it that we know has to stay on for the heat to work so we just thought that was all we had to do. Since we didn't want to go without heat and hot water we braved the crazy machine and got it repressurized and we got hot water and heat!!! So amazing!

The next kink in the day is that Helen emailed saying we exceeded our internet allowance. What the heck!?! How does that happen? Apparently we are allowed 10 GB of internet?!? We don’t really understand what it means but by searching the web we found out that amount is for one person with normal internet usage so it would have been fine when Rebecca was the only person using the internet. For 5 pounds more we can get 60 GB so we are going to try to get it switched! We have only been here 2 weeks and we already went over the monthly limit so it for sure needs to change! We are all willing to pay the extra to get more internet. Still confused as to why it has a limit! Apparently from 8 am to midnight you pay and from midnight to 8 am is free. Crazy England!

On a positive note, I did two loads of laundry without any problems. No 2.5 hour wash cycle like Melissa had the other day! There are so many choices on the washing machine! I just wanted my Hot/cold, cold/cold, and a few other choices but we have A-L for different types of clothes, a wide range of temperature setting and a couple other options.

Saturday September 18, 2010

We went to Durham with Br. Ralph today. We walked through some streets that were busy and down by the river crossed a bridge and up to the Cathedral. It is built on a piece of land by where the river Wear makes a U bend meaning it is protected on 3 sides. It was originally a Catholic Cathedral with a Benedictine Monastery but is an Anglican Church today. We climbed the tower and had a nice view of the city and the church grounds below. There were 325 steps and we were definitely tired by the time we got to the top! I counted at least 13 wind turbines in the distance. The weather was nice and I ended up carrying my jacket most of the time.

We watched a video about the Cathedral which talked about St. Cuthbert a lot. He was a monk and the bishop of on Lindisfarne where we will be going next weekend for a retreat! After St. Cuthbert’s death, the monks had to flee Lindisfarne and they brought St. Cuthbert’s coffin with them. They fled to several locations before finding the current location of the Durham location where they would be safe.

As we were walking through the Cathedral/old monastery part I thought that it looked a lot like Harry Potter! Melissa thought the same thing and looked up the filming location of the Harry Potter movies and some of the movies had parts filmed in the Cathedral!! I now really want to watch my Harry Potter DVDs to see if I recognize parts of the Cathedral!

On the way home we stopped at the Angel of the North. It is a large steel statue in Gateshead (across the river from Newcaslte) that is somewhat famous. I saw it from the car on the way up to Newcastle and it was a nice addition to our Durham trip. Br. Ralph was funny and kept quizzing us on the information we read about the statue on the info board at the statue.

We had another lazy evening and watched Elizabeth Town. I remember not liking the movie the first time I saw it but it is Abby’s favorite movie so I figured I would give it another try. It was better the second time around but I won’t be adding it to my list of favorite movies.

Sunday September 19

Today we went to church at St. Mary’s Cathedral in the city center. We went to the 10 am mass but want to attend the 6:30 pm mass in the near future because it is the youth mass. The mass was nice but a bit more traditional than I am used to. There was a nice haze on incense by the end of mass and some things were in Latin, although not much.

After mass Melissa caught the bus to go to a football (soccer) match with a team she is interested in joining. Abby and I found a nice little restaurant for lunch and then wandered around town doing some shopping. Abby needed a coat and I wanted a pair of boots since I know I will need them. We went to H&M and Primark as our first stops. I had seen cheap boots at Primark last week but they didn’t have any left in my size but I did find a cute skirt for 2 pounds! It is longer and I can wear leggings under it for extra warmth. Abby found a cute jacket for a good price at H&M. We wandered around and I found some boots. They are the same style as UGG boots but were cheap. They probably are the kind that will wear out after a year but that is fine with me! We also went to the Laing gallery and the library. The library in the city centre is huge! We had a good time browsing and each ended up taking 4 books home. I was super excited about the DVD selections and had picked out 4 movies I really wanted to see only to find out it costs 2 pounds to rent a DVD! What?! I expected the DVDs to be free to rent like in the US but I guess not. There are some DVDs the previous volunteers left but not a ton and we will probably watch all of them in another month or so. I brought some DVDs with me but I have to watch them on my computer since they are region 1 DVDs and the DVDs here are region 2. It is just nice to have a larger screen but I will settle for using my computer. Before we went to the gallery we walked down by the Quayside, across the Tyne Bridge and back across the Millennium Bridge, looked at some vendors and back into town. It was nice wandering around and due to the half marathon that started in Newcastle today a bunch of streets were blocked off to cars which made our rooming easier.

We were tired from our 5 hours of walking around town and shopping and both spend a good 2 hours reading before doing anything else when we got home. We ended up walking down the street to the Magic Wok for Chinese take away. It was good and the leftovers will make a great lunch tomorrow but we were disappointed they didn’t have sesame chicken!

Well, that is about it for the week. Although I have been here 2.5 weeks, I still feel like I am settling in and figuring out my routine. My flatmates are really nice and easy to get a long with, everyone at Kids Kabin is super nice and the sister/brothers are very welcoming. It just takes time to get adjusted and I guess I thought it would take less time than it is.

Sunday September 12

We took the bus into town and went to mass at St. Andrew’s in the morning. The music was livelier and we decided we liked it better than St. Anthony’s across the street but we have a couple more churches to try before deciding where we will go on a regular basis.

After church we walked over to St. Nicholas’s church and got tickets for the 1:45 tower tour. We were all hungry so we walked around looking for a lunch place that would have options and be fairly cheap. We ended up in the Eldon shopping center at a sandwich place called O’Brien’s.

The tower tour was cool! First we climbed up to the bell ringing area and some of the bell ringers were there and played a piece for us. It was very cool. The group was too large to go farther up all at once so we went in shifts. Abby, Melissa and I stayed back and waited. While we were waiting one of the bell ringers opened a door and it opened out onto the roof of the main part of the church and they said we could go out on the roof if we wanted to. Of course we did! We got a nice view and it passed the time while we were waiting. There were a lot of stairs to climb to the top! But it was cool! We got a nice view of town and of Castle Keep which was our next stop.

Melissa and Abby on the roof of St. Nicholas's church

Castle Keep and the Tower Tour were free because it was Tyne and Wear Heritage Open Days. There were a lot of free events from Thursday-Sunday. The castle itself is small, or I should say what is left of it. There was a model showing what the castle looked like before and there was a lot more but it was partially destroyed at some point. It was fun seeing the castle that Newcastle-Upon-Tyne was named after! There were free posters at Castle Keep so I took one to hang in my room! When we were on top of Castle Keep we saw the Millennium bridge rotated to let a boat pass under. :)

After the two tours we went shopping. We compared phone plans and decided to go with T-Mobile and we got pay as you go phones. I have no idea how much I will use my cell phone but it is nice to have one anyway. We wandered around town a bit more and stopped in a few stores for various items or just to look at what they had. By the time we went home we were all very tired!

Monday September 13

We are still figuring out our morning schedules so we didn’t really have anything going on in the morning. To make good use of our time we decided to go register with the doctor across from Kids Kabin. We got information and the forms to fill out but are not actually able to sign up until we get our bank cards in the mail in a few days because we need proof of address and don’t have anything from the acceptable list. Hopefully by early next week we will be all signed up.

I went over to Kids Kabin at 1:30 for a meeting with Will to talk about hours, expectations, how things are going so far, etc. (He wants us to come in around 1:00 pm. Although on days that I volunteer at Common Ground I will not get there until later since the hours at Common Ground will be 10am-2pm. I want to volunteer there 2 days a week. We will stay until about 6:00 pm two days a week and 8:00 pm two days a week. If we are staying until 8:00 pm that means we are helping with the street session which means we go with a couple other staff and volunteers to different neighborhoods and do activities. The activities are brought via trailers that attach to bikes and could be cooking, pottery, bike repairs or possibly other activities. Fridays will vary depending on the week but there are only bike repairs on Friday afternoons and no street sessions. ). After that I helped the other staff members with various projects until the kids came for the afternoon session. I was in cooking again and helped the kids make pasta and pasta sauce. They had some good ideas and each of the 4 groups made different pasta sauces that all tasted great!

At the end of Kids Kabin today Br. Ralph came up to me and asked if Abby, Melissa and I had any plans for the coming weekend. I said I didn't think so. He then offered to bring the three of us to Durham on Saturday! And if next weekend didn't work, he said that "the castle has been there for centuries so if this weekend doesn't work it will still be around in a fortnight". Haha! So it looks like we will be going to Durham on Saturday with Br. Ralph! Exciting! Durham is really close but it will be an adventure anyway. The Great North Run is on Sunday and starts or ends (or both??) in Newcaslte so we plan on watching part of it. Abby likes to run and is particularly excited about seeing it.

Hope your Monday is going great!

Laura

The rest of the week

Here is an overview of what I did for the rest of the week. Sorry I don't have any pictures.

Wednesday September 8
We each had quick meetings at Kids Kabin this morning to sign a contract thingy and to go over some policy stuff and set up future meetings to go over more important info. We were supposed to go to St. Anthony’s senior center but they were out on a trip so we had a flat meeting instead to talk about chores, visitors, trips, food, etc. We went back over to Kids Kabin for a staff meeting before the normal afternoon session. Abby, Melissa and I also watched James and Colin work on the bikes we will get to use. They were having some troubles but ended up getting most things sorted out before the kids came. I was in cooking again. Gary was there and there were 2 kids, Connor and Jack. Jack made mash and gravy and Connor made meatballs.Melissa was in dance and Abby was in Art.

After Kids Kabin we got ready to go to mass across the street to celebrate the 150 years of the church across the street. The Bishop came and the church was full. We didn’t stay for the refreshments after mass because we all wanted dinner. We made a lovely chicken pesto pasta type dish and ate it while watching “Baby Mama”. We are tired and needed a chill night. It was a fairly simple day. I really need to get a planner because I now have appointments that are written on random pieces of paper. Oh well, shopping on Friday. So excited! Helen and Carolyn leave tomorrow (Carolyn in the morning and Helen in the evening).

Thursday September 9
We had another busy day! This morning we walked down to St. Vincent’s primary school because it is another option for volunteer sites. We got a tour of the building and stepped into several classrooms. Some of the kids were very excited to hear we came from America! A couple classes sang songs for us and one girl in about first grade showed us her work from earlier in the day. They were really cute and well behaved. St. Vincent’s is a Catholic primary school but unlike the United States, most of the Catholic primary schools are free just like the normal public schools. Everyone there seems really nice and they are flexible with scheduling which is nice as well.

After visiting St. Vincent’s we visited the care center across the street at St. Anthony’s. It is no longer restricted to just seniors but other community members who want to come. They have a wide age range of adults who mostly are either seniors or have learning difficulties or other challenges. They are also flexible with scheduling.

We went back to Kids Kabin at about 1. Melissa and I completely took apart a bike! One of the activities they run is bike repairs and in order to get a better idea of how a bike works we had to take apart a bike and put it back together. Abby has an arts background and will be running the pottery room so she spent time there getting things organized. For the actual session I was in wood working today and had a lot more fun than I expected. I was helping a girl who wanted to make a model of Big Ben. Someone else had done this in the past and their project was still in the woodwork room which is where she got the idea. She was focused for most of the time but needed direction because she got distracted and discouraged fairly easily.

After the normal session there was a street session where the staff goes out to a street/neighborhood area and has activities. They have special trailers to pull behind bikes that carry all the supplies. Today they took cookery and pottery on the street session. Abby went with to help with the pottery while Melissa and I kept working on our bikes with the help of one of the staff members. He is very nice and was very helpful. By the end we both had mostly functioning bikes, just a few more changes and they will be good to go! I definitely learned a lot about bikes but I would need to do it all over again to really feel comfortable with what I was doing.

Friday September 10
I slept in until about 10 this morning and it was wonderful! Unfortunately we had a meeting at 2pm at Kids Kabin so we had less time than we were originally thinking to go shopping. We walked to Morrison’s which took about 30 or 35 minutes and took the bus back. The store was SUPER crowded!! We definitely need to try shopping at other times because it was just horrible! We made it through the store, have a fridge and freezer full of food with some money left over too so it was a successful trip.

The meeting was quick and then we had extra time and they wanted us to stay for bike repair session to learn some more about bikes. We learned that the normal activites are Monday- Thursday and they only have bike repairs on Friday afternoon. We helped Abby in the pottery room with our extra time. We unscrewed the top of a table and flipped it over and re-screwed it. One side was really dirty and the other side made the table look brand new. She needed to make another plaster block to dry out renewed clay on so we helped her make the mold. We tried to mix up some plaster for the mold but it was a major fail! Everything was going fine and then it all of a sudden it just set up! It was hard as a rock with the stir stick stuck in it! We found out plaster can expire and it had a use by date of September 2007. Oh well, just need to get some new plaster and we will be good to go.

A lot of kids came to the bike repair session. Some had easy problems to fix and others had lots of problems and ended up leaving their bikes there because they were not fixed. Melissa and I helped with several punctured tires and some brakes. Melissa is getting good a working on breaks because she had to work on her brakes for a long time yesterday!

Melissa did her laundry tonight. As a result we learned that certain setting take a really really long time! Like 2.5 hours to wash. I think I will be choosing the quick wash setting! Melissa found an online manuel for the washer and sent it to Abby and me so we can look up specific option times and not have to want 2.5 hours for our clothes to wash!

Saturday September 11
I got to sleep in again today and it was glorious! We had a lazy start to the day and then went to a community event at the Monkchester Community Center. Sr. Josepha was there and introduced us to some people. Some of the kids there recognized us from Kids Kabin and our visit to St. Vincent’s primary school. We talked to Sr. Josepha about the retreat she had mentioned because we all want to go and it sounds like we can. It is at the end of September and all expenses paid. The retreat is on Holy Island about 100 km north. I'm excited!!

Next we went into Byker and did some necessary shopping. We stopped in the charity shops and other cheap stores. I stocked up on essentials like an extension cord, envelopes, a loofah, an alarm clock (pink to match my room), bike lock, calendar/planner, face soap, etc. I am excited about many of my purchases! We were all tired by the end of our shopping excursion and glad to get home!

One of the stores we stopped in is called TKMaxx, basically exactly the same as TJMaxx in the states it just has a slightly different name for some reason. We ran into someone we met last week during our shopping trip. It is nice to be walking around the shops and start recognizing people and have people recognize us!

After dinner we rearranged all the cupboards in our kitchen and dining room. All the plates, bowls, cups, silverware were in an cupboard on the far side of the dining room and their location was driving us all crazy! So we relocated some kitchen items we won’t use much or at all to the dining room cupboard and put the plates, bowls, etc. in the kitchen cupboards. We also organized and rearranged our food. We are all very happy with the rearranging!

We then planned our day tomorrow. We are going to go to mass in the city centre tomorrow at St. Andrew’s. There is a youth group/youth mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral but it has been under construction and will be opening soon (possibly this weekend). We are going to try to go to some of the free Heritage Weekend events in town as well.

I hope you are all having a great September!

First day at Kids Kabin

Today was another busy day! We started the day by joining the sisters and Brother Ralph for morning prayer and breakfast. After breakfast we went across town to meet the other AMA (Associate Missionaries of the Assumption) volunteers working at the Pendower project. They are really nice and it was good to get to know some other young adults in Newcastle who we can get together with. Also, one of the volunteers has been here since January and will be good resource since she already knows where everything is in Newcastle. It was nice to see where they live and work and also where the nearest bus stop is to their house since they live too far away to walk.

After lunch we went over to Kids Kabin where Melissa, Abby and I will spend most every afternoon. Kids Kabin is an after school program for kids ages 8-12 and it runs from 3:45-5:15 Monday-Friday. The number of kids varies from day to day but they try to keep a high adult to kid ratio so that each kid can get some individual attention and help with the projects/activities. We met the director, Will, and some of the other staff at Kids Kabin and had a tour of the building. There are rooms for woodwork, pottery, glasswork, general arts and crafts, sewing, cooking, gardening and bike repairs. We spent some time organizing and getting ready for the start of sessions. Kids Kabin had been closed for awhile during the summer vacation and there was a lot that needed to be done. There were only 4 kids that came for the session at 3:45. School doesn’t start until tomorrow and since Kids Kabin just opened today and is connected with school they had no idea how many kids to expect. They said it varies each year when they start again-they can have a ton of kids on the first day or just a few. Today it was just a few. It was nice to start out with a small crowd since we are all getting used to things. We were “kids” for the day and got to participate in the making and not really the leadership roles that we will normally have. I was in the cooking room for the day. There were a bunch of bananas that were going to go bad so we made a banana cake and banana fritters. Both were very tasty! After the kids left we helped with more organization before heading back for a later dinner. It was really nice to get started doing something!

Brother Ralph helps out at Kids Kabin some days and this afternoon he gave Melissa, Abby and I some “proper English chocolate that is a lot better than the Hershey bars we have in America” aka Cadbury chocolate bars. He also printed each of us a copy of the pictures we took this morning outside the sisters’ house. It was so nice!!

We made our first purchases tonight which was exciting even though it was just basic items like lotion, toothpaste and Kleenex! We are looking forward to our free day on Friday – especially to browse through the stores! The simple things like shopping for essentials are suddenly exciting and interesting. I find it interesting looking at the different flavors, packages, names and products!

One interesting thing I’ve noticed so far is that a lot of the outlets have a switch on them to turn the power on and off. I need to start making a list of other differences!

It was another super windy day today! Sadly, it looks like we will be having a few rainy days in a row starting tomorrow. We have been really lucky so far with no rain! I guess I better get used to it!

Take care,
Laura

My flat!

A tour of our apartment.My bedroom with the hot pink carpet.

The other side of my room. I think the pictures make it look smaller than it is.

The bathroom

The living room

The dining room taken from the kitchen. (You can see the living room too)

Our kitchen with a fridge shorter than me!

Sunday September 5, 2010

We got up and went to church across the street at St. Anthony of Padua at 10:45. It was a nice mass but the music was a bit slow and not as upbeat as I like or am used to. Oh well, we are going to check out some other churches in the coming weeks.

After mass we hopped in the car and headed off to Tynemouth for the afternoon. We started out right in Tynemouth where there is an old castle and priory. We looked at it but didn’t actually go inside - we will have to do that some other day. Then we started our hike up the coast along the beach. We took our shoes off and walked in the sand for awhile. The sand was super soft and felt really nice! The water was freezing but there were many people out surfing, swimming, kayaking and wind surfing. We walked until we reached Cullercoats bay where we stopped for a typical fish and chips lunch. Of course, we had tea to drink. I can already tell I will be drinking a ton of tea this year! It was pretty tasty and the portions were a lot larger than I was expecting. After lunch, Helen and Carolyn walked back to where the car was parked and Melissa, Abby and I walked on to Whiley Bay to see the lighthouse. We had a fun time exploring and being by the sea! It was a great day! I just love the sea/ocean and am glad we live relatively close by!

We are all relaxing and having some quality computer time before a busy week ahead. No more sleeping in! Most of our days start around 8 am this week. We will be visiting the other volunteers across town, spending the afternoons in Kids Kabin, visiting the other volunteer sites, attending a celebration or two and getting to know the town better. I hope you are all having a wonderful Labor Day weekend!!

Tynemouth Castle and priory

Tynemouth

My first fish and chips!

We ate our fish and chips at a table looking out the window of Bill's fish bar that says restaurant tea and coffee.

St. Mary's lighthouse

The first few days in England

Hi everyone! Due to a lack of internet access I am just getting around to posting an update. I was all set to put this update on my blog last night because we had figured out the internet but then it stopped working! Thankfully, it is working again this morning :)

The weather has been really nice so far! It has not rained and it feels like falls. I could have used a few more days of summer but I do love fall weather!

Wednesday September 1 - Thursday September 2
So as things normally go with flights, there were delays and it didn’t all go as planned although I didn’t miss any flights! We got to the airport with enough time, got to say hi/by to Uncle Rob, Auntie Mary and Elizabeth which was really nice! Elizabeth and I had gates close to each other so we walked to our gates and waited for our planes. My plane said on time but it ended up being about 15 minutes late, no big deal. My flight plan was Minneapolis to Dallas to London. On the first leg of the journey, we were almost to Dallas but we kept going in big circles….there was bad weather in Dallas. The pilot got an alternative path but unfortunately we had circled so much that we would run out of fuel and had to land in Wichita Falls, Texas to refuel instead. We ended up sitting there for almost 3 hours and taking off around 7:40 pm. This was partly due to the fact that all arrivals were suspended to Dallas for at least an hour due to the bad weather-although it was sunny in Wichita Falls! In the end, we arrived in Dallas 4 hours late-at 8:10 pm instead of 4:10 pm! So I was convinced my flight leaving at 9:10 pm would be delayed. To my surprise when I got off the plane it said on time for my flight to London and I raced off to a different terminal to make it for boarding. When I got there it was delayed 10 minutes and then 20 minutes and I boarded at about 9:15. The plane seemed really empty but I was happy to have two seats to myself and thought it was going to be a rather pleasant 9 hour flight with room to spread out! However, for about 2 more hours people slowly but surely started filling up the seats and the plane was full. I guess they didn’t know so many people had not landed and actually waited for everyone! I would have much rather spent the time walking around the airport since the 5 hour layover I was expecting was drastically shortened and I didn’t really have much time to stretch my legs. Once we took off it went smoothly and I got maybe 2 or 3 hours of sleep, watched “How to Train Your Dragon” and completed many Sudoku puzzles. I was supposed to be the first person to arrive but due to the delays, I was second to arrive. Melissa arrived about 2 minutes later. Abby had delays as well and was coming in about 2 hours later so Helen took the three of us who had arrived to our rooms by the where the Assumption sisters in London live. Once we unloaded out bags we walked around a bit. We were close to Kensington Park and walked around there and saw Kensington Palace. Since the anniversary of Princess Diana’s death was on August 31st there were many flowers and notes to Princess Diana attached to the gates of Kensington Palace. We had a nice dinner with the sisters after Abby arrived and had an early night since we were all exhausted.

Flight Summary
1:30 board in MSP
4:55 land in Wichita Falls, Texas (due to bad weather in Dallas)
7:40 Take off
8:10 land in Dallas (original arrival 4:10)
8:20 off plane
9:15 board plane to London
11:00 leave gate
2:00 pm arrive in London (original arrival 11:25 pm)


Friday September 3
We had breakfast, packed up and left around 10. Heather is volunteering in southern England and went by train to her destination. Abby and one of the sisters went by train to Newcastle and Melissa, Helen and I went by car. We stopped along the way for lunch. The rest stop was really nice and had several stores! We got sandwiches and drinks from a small grocery store-it was fun looking at all the different choices like chicken and sweet corn!
When we got to Newcastle we had tea and treats with the sisters and met one of the brothers who lives next door to the sisters. They all seem really nice! They have nice backyards with flower and vegetable gardens. We were all anxious to see our flat so we drove over and unloaded. It is pretty spacious and we each get our own rooms which is nice, although I would not have minded sharing a room since that is what I am used to! Melissa and Abby didn’t want the room with the hot pink carpet and I actually like the hot pink carpet and flowers on the wall so there was no argument about who got that wall. One down side is that I don’t really have a window in my room. There are two small windows in the ceiling but nothing to look out of. Once we all had our rooms we rearranged the furniture to our liking and unpacked while Helen and Carolyn bought some food for dinner. After dinner we got our schedule for the next few days and talked about what we would like to see and learn about in the next few days while Helen and Carolyn are still in town (they are staying with the sisters).
After they left, we finished putting things away and decided to watch a movie. We ended up choosing “Burn After Reading” because none of us had seen it (left by a previous volunteer) but unfortunately we all agreed that it was not a very good movie. My bed is pretty nice but I had a hard time falling asleep due to the long nap I took in the car.

Saturday September 4
We got to sleep in and then started our pretty full day. We went over a bunch of information with Helen and Carolyn regarding our stipend, expectations, bus system, community, volunteer sites, shopping, and more on the schedule for the week. Then we took a nice walk around the Walker neighborhood and got to see Kids Kabin, Common Grounds, the Walker park, a post office, doctor’s office, etc. We then drove a few minutes to a road with a lot of shops. It was nice to see where we could go shopping! It is close enough that we can walk, although it might take 30 minutes or more. Charity shops are common in England and they are similar to Goodwill stores although they are smaller and there are a lot more of them. We can get a lot of decent stuff for cheap and all the furniture in our apartment came from various charity shops. We also found a gym and swimming pool (looks a bit too pricy) and signed up with the library. We can use a bunch of different libraries in Newcastle including one right down the road from where we live and one in the city centre that is open 24 hours. We had another session about conflict resolution and non-violent communication as a tool for use in our community of three or at our volunteer sites. After lunch we headed out again and went to the city centre which is the nicer part of town. We saw the Gateshead Millennium Bridge which is one of the better know sites in the town. It is a cool looking pedestrian bridge that rotates to let ships pass under it. Also, it lights up at night with different colors (we were there in the day time so we didn’t see it lit up). There is a bike path that goes along the Tyne River and apparently takes about 15-20 minutes to bike from our flat to the city centre/Gateshead Millennium Bridge. I’m excited to bike down to the city centre once we get bikes which will hopefully be later this week. The buses are fairly expensive but we will use them for big grocery trips or when the weather is nasty. We found some art galleries, a concert hall, more shops, 2 other churches we could go to (one that other volunteers have go to in the past where there is young adult group they got involved with) and got a better idea of where some things are located. Abby was really excited by one of the exhibits in the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (formerly a flour mill) because she had studied the artist and his work in school so that was neat!
Getting to walk around the city was really helpful but I still feel a bit out of place. I’m eager to get more acquainted with the city and get to know other people. It is weird knowing so few people! After dinner we were all excited to use the internet since we finally had the password and wanted to check emails and Skype with family and friends. It worked for awhile and then suddenly stopped working.